Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) or thermal assisted magnetic recording (TAMR) are promising solutions for continuously increasing data storage recording density. Under the HAMR or TAMR conditions, the temperature of the recording medium surface will reach as high as or above the Curie temperature of the magnetic layer. This therefore requires thermally stable lubricant which can survive at 350° C., or even higher. Meanwhile, not only reliable tribological performance in hard disk drive is very critical, but also the highly thermally stable lubricant with comparable tribological properties to the commercial lubricants is an essential and critical requirement for HAMR application.
Currently, there are limited commercial lubricants which have decomposed temperatures above 300° C., such as X1-p (Dow Company) and A20H (Moresco (Matsumura Oil Research Corporation)). However, these lubricants are not quite appropriate for HAMR application mainly due to relatively low thermal stability and poor laser resistance.